Kimmie Gets Sick
Or
The Proper Care And Feeding Of A Young Vampire
A Kimberly Anne Moriarty Misadventure
By
Matt R. Jones, Esq.

            It was a warm, early August night in one of the many well-to-do neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city of Los Angeles, and Kimberly Anne Moriarity was having a nice jog along one of the area’s many well-kept sidewalks, hoping that tonight’s venture went better than the previous night’s.  Kimberly, who had been commonly known as Kimmie since she’d been a little girl growing up in the small Midwestern town of Kowalski, Illinois, grimaced a bit as she remembered last night’s misadventure, mentally kicking herself for being naïve enough to think that she could have jumped and taken someone down right in the middle of Beverly Hills (90210, at that) without being noticed when she was so woefully inexperienced in such things.

She’d barely been able to get her ass out of sight before a patrol car had cruised by with its spotlight running; the young, sturdy man she’d jumped had let out a very loud yowl when she’d sprang onto his back and chomped down on his neck, intent upon finally finding out what it was like to drink blood.  But Kimmie, in her youthful and untrained enthusiasm, hadn’t thought to put her hand over the man’s mouth when she’d leaped onto his back, and when he’d yelled, oh boy, what a racket he’d made!  By the time Kimmie had finally gotten her hand over the squirming man’s mouth and had used her superior strength to cinch herself down on his back, she realized that he’d stumbled down the sidewalk a good distance since she’d first pounced, and that instead of being by the large bunch of bushes that Kimmie had intended to drag him into, they were now right out in front of a rather large and well-lit house . . . with the patrons of some sort of middle-aged persons’ party peering out the huge bay window right at them.  But the worst part was that there were already four or five people making frantic-looking calls on their cell phones!  The young vampire had groaned in dismay . . . just another reason to hate those stupid things!

Snarling, “Thanks a lot, asshole!” Kimmie had bopped the man over the head with her fist in frustration, knocking him loopy, and she’d almost gotten squashed underneath him when he started to keel over backwards from the added weight on his back, namely her, but she’d sprang off of his back in time, and then had beat feet down the sidewalk.  She’d barely had time to duck into another group of bushes and wriggle away on her belly through the dirt and leaves when a patrol car had swung around a corner, obviously looking to keep the favor of the richy-rich residents of Beverly Hills.  Fortunately Kimmie was faster than the average mortal, and what she lacked in practice at fleeing, she more than compensated for with a good dose of urgency mixed with annoyance, and she’d gotten away scot-free and filthy as hell, thus putting a wonderful cap to an already-bothersome evening.

Kimmie, in case you hadn’t already guessed, dear reader, was a young vampire totally unversed in how exactly one went about being a vampire, including the fine art of feeding from a mortal.  A couple of months previous to the troublesome night in question, Kimmie’s boyfriend-who-happened-to-be-a-vampire, Brian, had accidentally turned her into a vampire herself when he’d been blood-drunk from imbibing too much blood in an alley earlier that evening and had miscalculated how much blood he’d drank from Kimmie when they’d been engaged in some erotic vampire/willing victim play . . . Kimmie will be the first to tell you that Brian wasn’t nearly as smart as he thought he was.  Brian had panicked when he realized that Kimmie had gone totally pale as well as nearly incoherent, her heart barely beating, and he did the only thing he could think of to keep her alive, and that was giving her some of his own blood to drink to replace what he’d taken.  That’s pretty much all it takes for a vampire to turn a mortal, but usually it’s done with a great deal more finesse, the vampire letting the blood circulate through his system for a bit before giving it back to the vampire-to-be, not to mention the fact that the vampire gives back an amount of blood equal to what he’d taken, as opposed to the small pittance that Brian gave Kimmie that night.  It kept her alive well enough, though she was sick, weak, and in a daze for days afterwards.

Whenever she got back into herself, she’d been severely pissed off, not only because she hadn’t wanted to be a vampire yet, but also because she’d been right about Brian’s judgment being way off whenever he’d started getting amorous with her . . . she hated it when she was telling it like it was and nobody would listen!  Though her initial anger had been quelled by the fact that she was an actual vampire at long last, something she’d been wanting her entire life, it started to grow again when Brian wouldn’t teach her anything about the world of vampires other than how to extend and retract her fangs from her gums, which was something she would’ve figured out on her own, anyway.  He wouldn’t let her feed from him, as he was afraid she might try to drain him nearly dry in retribution (hell hath no fury like a Kimmie scorned, after all), and he wouldn’t let her go out with him when he went to go feed, either, as he said she was too inexperienced and would get into trouble . . . how the hell was she supposed to get experience when he wouldn’t take her out with him?  It was a total catch-22 . . .

Things had come to an end between the couple when they’d gotten into an argument, and she’d damned near knocked his head off with one solid punch . . . despite the miniscule amount of blood he’d given her and the fact that Brian had already been a vampire for several months, she turned out to be a lot stronger than him, which suited her just fine.  But he didn’t like the thought of that at all, as despite his ever-so-deep gothic trappings and the fact that he was a vampire, Brian was, at heart, a typical male, and he disappeared very shortly afterwards, leaving Kimmie on her own, with no idea on what a vampire did and with no other vampires to teach her how to go about things.  With no instruction on how to properly drink blood (beyond the fact that Brian said it had to be fresh), she’d subsisted on regular food for the time being, eating it in great amounts that should have turned her into an absolute house of a young woman, but it seemed that vampire bodies made far better use of food than mortal bodies did, and digested and burned up nearly everything.

The only catch was that a vampire’s body also disposed of its food wastes in a manner very similar to barfing, though it was far less messy and smelly . . . Kimmie’d been rather repulsed the first three or four times she’d had to do it, but now it seemed perfectly normal to her, and she found that she liked it a lot better than the previous two methods of waste disposal she’d used when she was a mere mortal gal.  At the very least, Brian’s screw-up had turned her into a virtual stranger to the bathroom . . . and no more periods, either!  She’d cackled in delight over that one, despite the fact that being a vampire meant she couldn’t have kids . . . like she cared.  Most kids were punks, anyway, and she had no interest in being Mommy Kimmie at any point in time, so that suited her just fine.

Once she’d been on her own for a few days and had figured out a little about herself, she’d gone on a search for a real vampire in Los Angeles to show her the ropes and how to go about living as a creature of the night.  Not only did she want to learn how to be a vampire, but also how to dress like one, act like one, and think like one . . . she’d wanted to be a totally goth vampire, like Brian had been and how she’d wanted to be for years now.  She’d figured that finding a real vampire to teach her all of these things would have been easy in a city the size of Los Angeles, but she’d found nothing except for posers and dorks . . . she hadn’t even been able to find any decent goths to hang out with.  There had been one guy she’d met over the internet, who went by the name of Raven Claws, that she’d thought was really a vampire but had only turned out to be one of those geeks who were deeply into pretending they were vampires while playing that goofy role-playing game, and man, she’d been ticked when she’d found out what the deal was with that guy.  After pounding on him and his brother, as well as scaring his friends away, Kimmie had left, deciding that it was time for her stop waiting around and trying to find others to learn from and to just start blazing trails herself, for better or worse.

It wouldn’t be all that different from high school when Mrs. Gefferson had gotten monstrously sick at the beginning of the year and had left Kimmie and the rest of the yearbook high and dry and totally clueless what to do; Kimmie had taken charge, using her own particular brand of cleverness and pushiness to get things done and get them done right, which ended up creating one of the best yearbooks Kowalski High had ever turned out.  Kimmie hadn’t known what to do back then, but she’d figured things out as she’d gone along, and what she hadn’t been able to find out right away, she faked until a solution fell into her lap . . . she’d be just fine.  So she’d set out in her little Metro and had decided that it was sink-or-swim time, and that she’d go hunting that very night and finally figure out how to get the job done.  That was the night she’d had her little adventure in Beverly Hills . . . not exactly an auspicious start to her attempts at learning how to be a vampire on her own.

After she’d crawled out of the bushes she’d headed home, dirtying up the inside of her car on the ride back, and had gotten herself cleaned up, all the while nervous that cops were going to start banging on her door at any second.  After stewing in her apartment for a little while, Kimmie found that she was seriously hungry for blood for the first time, since she’d managed to get a little taste of blood when she’d nipped her intended victim, and that had only whetted her appetite, turning the vague, constant desire she’d been feeling since she’d become a vampire into a sharp-edged, full-blown hunger for something that she couldn’t buy at the corner grocery store unless she jumped a clerk and shoved a roll of quarters in his mouth for payment.  The hunger had started to drive her a bit batty, which only made her even more nervous and agitated about possibly getting caught for her little stunt, and to assuage her jangled nerves, Kimmie had taken off into the night again, but not in search of blood this time . . . no matter how hungry she was for it, she was making herself wait until the next night, just to be safe.

It took her a while to find somewhere that had what she was looking for, but after about an hour, Kimmie found herself inside a comic book store called the Three Amigos, in search of hair dye . . . she figured that if the cops did come around looking for her, she was going to do a little something to change her appearance from what it had been earlier that evening; not only that, she’d been wanting to do something different with her hair for a while now.  Before, she’d only thought she’d be putting black streaks into her hair, dyeing it black, or doing something similar, but now that she’d decided to pilot her own course, she wanted to do something else . . . something colorful, something those wannabe goths wouldn’t do, so she set off in search of hair dye.

However, she hadn’t been able to find a music store or hair place open near where she lived at a bit past 2 on a very early Saturday morning, and she’d finally decided on trying the aforementioned comic shop, as it was open 24 hours a day and looked to have all kinds of other junk in there, so why not hair dye?  As it had turned out, she’d been on the money, and she found herself a bottle of bright pink dye which would look perfect on her naturally blonde hair (she’d have to bleach the recently-added black streaks out of it, but that wasn’t a problem).  She hadn’t really cared for the three twentysomething idiots behind the counter, whom she’d had to ask several times to get them to acknowledge her, as they were absorbed in some stupid Japanese cartoon with stupid Japanese fighting robots that was showing on a TV they had mounted near the ceiling, but the price had been good, and she’d hurried back to her apartment to get to work on her hair.

By the time the sun was starting to rise, her hair was a brilliant shade of pink, and she found that all of the excitement of the previous night, from the disappointment with Raven Claws to the failed hunt to finding the hair dye, had totally worn her out and that she was ready to crawl under the covers and sleep for a good long while.  She had work that day, at Wal-Mart, but she’d called in sick so that she could have some needed downtime . . . hell, she would’ve been sick if she’d gone out into the day, anyway.  Though Brian said that sunlight would kill a vampire just like it did in the movies, he’d also added that there were half-vampires that were almost just like full vampires, except they could go out into the sunlight unharmed, and Kimmie wondered if she wasn’t some sort of half-vampire, since the sun didn’t burn her up . . . but she’d found that she got sick to her stomach and horrendously nauseous if she was out in it for any length of time, so getting to work was an ordeal at times.  And at that juncture in time, it wasn’t an ordeal she wanted to put up with, not after everything else that had happened the previous night.  So Kimmie had slept until the sun was hanging low in the sky, and she’d gone out hunting again, heading for a different rich area this time . . . Kimmie figured that if she was going to start drinking anybody’s blood, the affluent were the best bet to go with, since so many of them were so health-conscious.  She may as well start at the top . . . besides, the rich seemed to be the least likely to carry guns while they were out, and Kimmie wasn’t sure if she could take a bullet and get away with it or not.

Upon waking just when the sun was going down, Kimmie had hopped out of bed, feeling wired and nervous, as though she’d drank far too much coffee, though from the way she felt, the sensation couldn’t have come from too much of anything . . . rather, from too little of something, namely blood.  After she’d showered and gotten dressed in a nondescript black and blue jogging suit that looked quite different from the one she’d been wearing last night (which was now currently stuffed at the very bottom of her laundry hamper), she’d thought about getting herself a snack from her well-stocked fridge to try to take a little of the edge of the growling hunger roaming around in her guts, but tonight, the thought of food made her nauseous and she decided that she didn’t want any of it.  Probably better off, anyway . . . she wasn’t sure if mixing blood with food already in her stomach was a good idea or not.  Though, oddly, the thought of blood mixed with food made the food suddenly seem a lot more appetizing, and though she should have been grossed out, it didn’t bother her at all, and actually seemed to calm her stomach down a bit, at least on the nauseous end . . . it made the hunger even worse.  Her stomach snarled angrily at her as she’d tied back her pink, shoulder-length hair and put a baseball cap on, growling that she needed to quit screwing around and get it some blood, and pronto.

That had been about an hour and a half ago, and the clamor her stomach had been making then was nothing compared to what it was doing now.  Adding to it was that she was now even more jittery than before, as though she’d been shooting coffee into her veins instead of drinking it, and Kimmie had started to jog along the sidewalks not only to make herself as inconspicuous as possible, but also to hide her trembling.  “I’m shaking like a damned junkie!” Kimmie hissed under her breath as she jogged, keeping her eyes open for potential prey, “I probably look like a crackhead!”  Her stomach and body informed her that they didn’t care if she appeared to be some damned crazy crackhead . . . she’d better get to delivering the goods before long or otherwise they were going to make things even more miserable for her.  For the millionth time Kimmie cursed Brian for skipping out and not teaching her anything she needed to know to get by as a vampire . . . if she ever met him again, he was going to find out what the true meaning of hell was!  Less cursing, more blood, her stomach intoned, backed up by a shudder from her body, one that nearly made her trip on the sidewalk . . . this was starting to get serious!

Kimmie’s eyes narrowed and she glanced around, catching sight of a few others jogging as she entered a good-sized, relatively well-lit residential park, and she realized that she’d probably wasted the last hour by jogging on the streets instead of pulling into a park like this one, which seemed like a perfectly logical place to go . . . after all, how times had she gone jogging back in one of Kowalski’s parks back home?  Duh!  Self-recriminations later, blood now, growled her stomach and body in concert.  As Kimmie jogged, she sized up her potential prey, trying to find someone that looked to be in the absolute prime of their health . . . she figured that if she was going to drink someone’s blood, she may as well start off on someone worthwhile.  She also took in the lay of the land as she scouted for prey, and noted that there were plenty of bushes and trees to hide behind in the park, and many of the bushes grew in large groupings that would be easy for her to drag someone into and then get her much-needed sustenance.  Everything looked perfect, except she wasn’t sure who to go after . . .

There were several middle-aged people jogging up and down some of the park’s winding concrete trails, and though they looked healthy enough, Kimmie didn’t much care for the looks of them: they looked too much like her parents!  From everything she’d seen in the movies and read in the books, the process of drinking a person’s blood, it was a pretty intimate process, and she didn’t feel like holding someone that could be her mother or father in her arms while she buried her face in their neck and drank their blood . . . that was just gross!  The only younger person she saw at the moment was a shapely brunette in a form-fitting jogging suit moving down one of the paths, and Kimmie shook her head at that prospect, too: she didn’t like the thought of getting intimate with another girl any more than she did an old person.  She recalled how she’d been hit upon by the rather trashy lead singer of the female metal band called Rapture when she’d been at a club known as the Hideout, and how revolted she’d been at the thought of going home with the leering woman, and Kimmie decided that she wasn’t going to be able to drink the blood of another woman, because that was too close to lesbianism, ewww!  Her body informed her that it didn’t care if it was lesbianism or not, it wanted blood, and it wanted it now . . . her stomach growled in agreement, but Kimmie held firm on that, though she nearly tripped on the sidewalk again when she mentally put her foot down.

Kimmie allowed herself a groan as she stopped by a tree, which was positioned right in front of a considerable bunch of bushes, and leaned up against it, feeling weak and shaky, trying to do her best to look like a jogger that had really run herself down . . . it wasn’t too hard, considering how harried she felt right now.  Dammit, why couldn’t a Brad Pitt type come running along the path?  Where were all the good-looking guys when she needed one?  At that moment, the brunette jogged past her, within grabbing reach, and smiled a greeting as she went by, and Kimmie softly growled; she hated it when the universe played games with her.  She rested against the tree, wishing that she could simply wander into a fast food place and order herself what she needed . . . a good hearty victim, perhaps with a side of fries and a chocolate shake, if her stomach could handle it.  She giggled.  I’ll have a number 6, Victim and Fry combo, give him blue eyes and an athletic build, she thought, annoyed that this wasn’t nearly as easy as the movies and books made it out to be, and yet again pissed off at Brian because he hadn’t taken the time to teach her essentials like this, the bastard.

As she leaned against the tree, she started to wonder if stopping had been the best idea in the world, because it seemed like the longer she stood there, the harder it was to thinking about stepping away from the tree and starting to jog about, looking for prey, again.  Her body was snarling at her ferociously by now, but at the same time she kept feeling weaker, like the strength was draining right out of her . . . well, of course it was draining out of her: she was a vampire, vampires needed blood to survive, and she’d only had but a drop since transforming into one over a month ago!  As a wave of wooziness washed over her, Kimmie put her hand over her eyes, rested the back of her head against the rough bark of the tree, and softly moaned, “Ohhhh, this sucks, this sucks sooooo bad.  I am sooooo screwed . . .”

“Excuse me?”

Kimmie’s hand flew away from her eyes and she brought her head forward again to see a young man standing on the path a few feet from her, watching her curiously; she hadn’t even heard him come up!  The guy had short blond hair and was moderately attractive, Kimmie noticed . . . he wasn’t one that she’d go ga-ga over, but he definitely wasn’t bad to look at, and he was built nicely, from what she could see through his t-shirt and jogging shorts.  He took a step closer to her to get a better look, and then said, “You don’t look so good . . .”

As soon as he’d taken that extra step, Kimmie’s wooziness flashed away and her senses went into overdrive: she could see every pore of his face, it seemed like, and caught over a dozen different scents clinging to him, including his own, which was extremely inviting to her at the moment.  What was most maddening was the way that she could now hear the beating of his heart . . . just the sound of it was driving her nuts!  She’d noticed a marked heightening of her senses after she’d turned into a vampire, but it had never been like this . . . his heartbeat, which was fairly rapid from his jogging, but was now slowing down, was a steady drumming in her ears, almost as though her head were inside a drum itself.  Then there was the smell of his blood, which rapidly separated itself from his other scents and settled into her nostrils and her mind, conspiring to drive her wild.  She’d never smelled anything that was even half as appetizing as the scent of blood was to her right now, and it was all she could do to stop herself from lunging at the man and viciously sucking every last drop of blood out of him.  While she’d been thinking more along the lines of ambushing someone as they jogged past, just leaping on them, dragging them into the bushes and then punching their lights out, she didn’t have any problems with playing this situation out, either . . . that, and it’s not like she could really stand to be too terribly picky, considering how she felt at the moment.

Patience, Kimmie, patience, she told herself, trying to stay under control long enough to get him into the bushes and start taking care of her damnable hunger.  Of their own accord, her eyes went to his neck, and she could even see his pulse beating through the jugular vein . . . all she had to do was get him down, pop out her fangs, pierce his skin, and then let relief surge through her.  It would be so easy . . . she just had to get him into the bushes and out of sight, that was it.  She wished she would have had this opportunity a couple of hours previous, or the night before, when she was more sure of her strength, because right now she wasn’t totally certain how she’d hold up in a struggle.  She was pretty sure she could overpower the guy, but didn’t want to try it out here in the open, where the light of the lampposts would show the rather unusual tableau of a slender young woman with pink hair pounding on a guy a good seven or eight inches taller than her and dragging him off into the bushes.  No, she was going to have to try to finesse this somehow, though she wasn’t sure how the hell she was going to convince a guy out for a jog to get into the bushes with her.  Then it hit her: what was every guy in the world always on the hunt for?  Women willing to have sex with them, of course.

Kimmie didn’t care who the guy in question was, the way to every guy’s heart was through his zipper, period.  She didn’t care how sweet, sensitive, gentle, or thoughtful they were, because at the back of every man’s mind was whether or not he was going to be able to get the goods from the girl, and that was something she’d learned a long time ago.  There were some guys out there that might be something of an exception to the rule, but men like the tragic Louis from Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles were exceedingly rare, and Kimmie knew she wasn’t going to find a guy like him jogging in a park in Los Angeles.  And the fact that she’d already noticed the guy’s eyes straying to her chest several times, not to mention below her waist, didn’t do anything to make her think that this guy was anything like Louis at all.

The guy was still looking at her, not quite sure what to think, and she graced him with a smile that had been honed to perfection when it came to charming the male species.  “I’ve been better,” she said, giving him a mildly coquettish look.  “It’s just been a rough couple of days for me, and I’ve been having a hard time unwinding.”  She allowed her eyes to slowly trail down his body, making a quick glance below his waist, just to give him the impression she was interested.  Dammit, this was hard . . . all she wanted to do was pounce and devour, not play these little games!  But if that was what she had to do to get rid of the nagging hunger, then so be it, at least until she was feeling stronger and she could just take what she wanted and needed.

The guy nodded, noting where her eyes were traveling, and returning her smile with one of his own . . . it might have even mildly charmed her if it weren’t for the fact that he was a potential meal.  Right now the only thing the smile did for her was make her certain that she was getting closer to finally getting what she needed.  “Yeah, I know how it goes,” he said, his eyes momentarily straying to her chest again.  “Anything I could, you know, help you with?”  Kimmie could’ve gagged at his delivery, as though the guy was probably around 25, that line and delivery of it reminded her of something a  9^th grade Casanova would have said.  This guy wasn’t even in the same solar system as Louis, but the beating of his heart and the inviting scent of his blood meant that he didn’t have to be in order to get close to her, though she doubted his definition of “getting close” was very much like hers.  As if she cared . . . all she wanted was to feed!

She came damned close to charging him at that very moment, and she was very nearly shaking with the effort of holding herself in line, but the desire to see this through properly and not get her ass in trouble was just strong enough that it was overpowering everything else.  Kimmie didn’t say anything in reply to his question, and instead unzipped the top of her jogging suit a little bit, showing off more of her neck and the upper part of her chest, with just a tiny hint of cleavage . . . she wasn’t big as chests went, but she had more than enough to get a guy’s attention.  She wasn’t wearing a shirt underneath, so the unsuspecting fellow got to see a decent expanse of her slightly pale skin, and Kimmie “accidentally” allowed the top part of her suit to slide to the right just a little bit, giving him a glimpse of a satiny black bra strap . . . she’d found that when exposed in the right way, a bra strap could entice a guy more than a set of fully exposed breasts.  She glanced down at the strap and made a face as though she were surprised to see it, and then gave the guy a very sly smile, followed up with a backwards glance to the bushes behind them.  After she’d seen that he’d  caught her glance, she raised her eyebrows in a question, hoping that he’d respond in an affirmative . . . if he didn’t, she’d figure out some other, less subtle way to get him into the bushes, and it wasn’t going to be sexual in nature, either.  Hell, she would’ve liked to have bonked him over the head just on general principles: she didn’t have much tolerance for goofballs.

The guy blinked.  “Really?  In there?  You wanna . . . you know?” he asked, and Kimmie nearly rolled her eyes.  Well, duh!  Gritting her teeth in a smile she hoped didn’t look menacing, she nodded her head invitingly.  What the hell else did he think she wanted?  To race for championship of the universe on a slot-car set?  Idiot.  She stepped away from the tree and started backing up towards the bushes, moving fairly quickly, keeping her eyes open for any joggers going by, as they could have complicated things considerably.  She held out her hand to the guy, wanting him to take it, and thus give her a good hold on him.  He seemed a little hesitant, so she upped the ante a little bit.

“Oh, come on,” she said in that breathy voice she’d always used to get her past boyfriends to do or buy something that she really wanted.  “Don’t you want to try something . . . exciting?”  She batted her eyelashes on the last word and put extra emphasis on it, then rolled her eyes up to indicate her pink hair.  “I think my hair will be the first to tell you that I’m not your ordinary, average girl from next door . . .”  After the words had come out of her mouth, she wondered if she’d just shot herself in the foot; she didn’t intend to kill this guy, just take a few pints and move on, and she wasn’t sure if drawing attention to her hair was a very good idea.  Then she felt a tiny moment of panic, thinking she’d have to go and change her hair again after this, but then she realized that this was Los Angeles, and people with weird hair colors were a dime a dozen, and a slender pink-haired girl with no other notable features wouldn’t stand out at all.  Then her stomach and body told her to stop worrying over minor details, quit jerking around, and get the joker in the bushes, or else there was going to be trouble.  Kimmie, wanting to get this in motion as quickly as she could, added, “And I don’t do ordinary, average girl things . . .”

When he put his hand in hers, she clamped down on it just a little too eagerly, but corrected herself a second later, holding it a soft yet firmly definitive way, urging him to follow her into the bushes.  Apparently, his dim little brain had indeed caught the meaning of what Kimmie had been trying to convey, and he moved towards the bushes even faster than she was, nearly bowling her over in his hurry to find out exactly what she had in mind for him.  Kimmie gave him a shake of her ass through her well-fitting jogging pants, and then almost turned around and socked him in the eye whenever he took that as an invitation to grab her ass . . . once she got him out of sight, she sure as hell wasn’t going to be gentle with him.  The young vampiress almost laughed as she realized that would probably help her cause even more, because if she clobbered him, knocking him silly and then taking his blood when he was conked out, he’d be much less likely to say anything to anybody than he would otherwise . . . after all, what guy wants to admit he got his ass kicked by a girl smaller than him?  Male pride could make them so easy to manipulate sometimes.  Now if she could just blot out the thudding of his heart in her ears and the delicious aroma of his blood long enough to get him in the bushes and get down to business . . .

“So do you wanna, you know, go all the way, right here?” he stupidly asked as Kimmie started to one-handedly push her way through the branches and leaves of the bushes, trying to find a spot that would give them enough room for “fooling around.”  She bit her lip, both to stop from swearing at how difficult the bushes were being to navigate and also at the idiocy of his question, and instead she just squeezed his hand a lot tighter, trying to avoid crushing it in her annoyance.  Apparently he took this as a ‘yes’ from her, and he said, “Oh wow!”  Yeah, he was going to be thinking ‘oh wow!’ here a few seconds, whenever she punched him upside the head and put him down.  Frustrated at the bushes, Kimmie yanked on the guy’s arm to pull him in behind her as she plowed a path through the branches, and she glanced back to see how far in they were; between the darkness and the thick green leaves, they were pretty well obscured from sight by the tall bushes.  Just a few feet more and . . .

Kimmie let out a little gasp of surprise as the guy pulled on her arm and unexpectedly whipped her around and pressed her to him, so that they were practically nose-to-nose.  Didn’t that son of a bitch know that she was in charge, here?  “Take me now,” he whispered roughly, leaning forward to kiss her while simultaneously reaching between her legs and grabbing her in a way that just flat-out pissed her off.

Kimmie responded with a headbutt that damned near fractured the guy’s skull, knocking him out totally, and for once she was happy that her older brother had thrashed on her so much when she was a kid, turning her into a hellion when it came to fighting.  The guy slumped into Kimmie’s arms, and she didn’t even wait to get him down to the ground before she lunged forward and plunged her now-extended fangs into the spot on his neck where his pulse was still rapidly beating, dropping to her knees and taking him with her as the warm, salty blood gushed into her mouth and ran down her throat, tasting and feeling simply incredible.  She moaned around his neck as she sucked down blood like there was no tomorrow, a heat flowing through her body like she’d never felt before, and it was wonderful.  Now she knew why Brian had liked to feed from her so much, because this felt so good it was almost ridiculous.

When she moaned again, she heard a male voice from outside the bushes, and nearly spat out a mouthful of blood in surprise.  “You all right in there?”

Shit!  Someone passing by had heard her!  “I’m okay . . . but I’m not decent, so don’t look!” Kimmie replied, though with her mouth still pressed  to her victim’s neck, so as not to waste any blood or spill it on herself, it came out like, “Amma oway . . . ub I’b ot ee-ent, oh ohn’t ook!”  Either which way, she hoped that it sounded like she was someone getting interrupted right in the middle of a particularly steamy moment and was in a hurry to get back to the fun.  Unable to stop feeding, despite the situation, Kimmie kept pulling blood from the wound, trying to get in as much as she could in case she had to run.

There was a pause from outside, and then a chuckle.  “Okay . . . are you sure?”

“I’b urr!”

“Promise?”

“Bromise!”

“All right then . . . I remember how it was when I was younger.  Just be careful, okay?” the voice said, sounding like that of a bemused parent.

“Oway!”

Over the sound of her own heart and that of her victim’s, beating in unison in her ears, Kimmie heard footsteps cross the grass in front of the bush, and then recede into the distance as they headed down the path.  Ah, finally!  Now she could get back to the good stuff.

She was in a happy daze, guzzling the idiot’s blood, fighting with her euphoria so that she’d be able to estimate when she needed to stop, when it hit her.  One second she was fine, then the next it was as though she were someone else entirely, and she was inundated with thoughts, feelings, images, and memories so rapidly that she didn’t have time to even begin to absorb them all.  Her head began to spin as she tried to wade her way through the flood, trying not to get washed away, but she was getting overwhelmed extremely fast.  Then the lovely feeling started to ebb away, replaced by a burning sensation that ran through her veins as quickly as the ecstasy had, and Kimmie, feeling like she was totally losing control, broke contact with her victim’s neck, falling back on her ass as he toppled forward onto her.  It felt like she’d been splashed with icy water, and her mind was reeling, but at least it was her own again.  “Shit, shit, shit!” she cursed as some of his blood trickled down onto the ground in front of her, and she tugged him forward so that she could lick the wound on his neck, in order to seal it up, like Brian always had to her when he’d taken his fill.  She closed the wound up and then shoved him off of her, letting him fall to the ground in a limp pile, but she could still hear his heart beating, so she knew that she hadn’t killed him . . . even if she had, she probably wouldn’t have thought much of it at the moment, because she had other concerns, which were increasing with each passing second.

For one thing, even though she wasn’t drinking any more blood, her body still felt hot . . . way too hot, as though there were lava searing through her.  For another, she was starting to feel even woozier than she had before she’d gotten any blood . . . what the devil was wrong?  She’d thought that finally getting some blood in her would do her some good, and instead it seemed like it was only messing her up even worse!  Shaking her head to try to clear it, Kimmie mentally brought up all the times that Brian had fed from her and did her best to recall how he’d behaved afterwards, and his reactions hadn’t been any different than they’d been after they’d had sex: he’d been dreamily content and very placid, so much so that he usually fell asleep.  Unconsciousness might not be far away from her at the moment, but it certainly wasn’t because she was about to fall asleep . . . more like she was going to pass out!

She shook her head harder and even thumped herself in the head with her hands, trying to put things back into place, but to no effect at all, and to make things worse, her entire body felt like it was being boiled alive, as every cell began to scream in a pain that she had no idea the origin of.  What if that guy had had some kind of disease that messed up vampires, and it was getting to her?  But how could it move through her that swiftly?  But then again, who’d have thought that vampires really existed at all?  Brian hadn’t said anything about human diseases affecting vampires, but he hadn’t really told her much of anything of substance, anyway, and he probably didn’t know, truth be told.  What the hell was she going to do?

“This sucks, this so totally sucks!  All I wanted was something to eat!” Kimmie moaned, trying to figure out what to do next.  All she wanted to do was get back to her apartment and crawl under the covers . . . at least there she’d feel a small modicum of safety, though she wasn’t sure what good it do.  But just like when she’d been a little girl afraid of the thunder and had hidden under her covers for protection, the instinct to seek safety in the comfort of her own bed was still there, and she decided that for lack of a better idea, she’d head back home.  It was better than sitting here in the bushes and doing nothing, at least.

Kimmie pushed herself to her feet, her body screeching in dismay at her sudden movement, and when the young vampire was upright again, she discovered that standing up so fast probably hadn’t been the smartest idea in the world, as it felt like someone had just stuck her into a blender and turned it on puree.  The world swam around her as she lost her balance and started to stumble backwards, pinwheeling her arms to try to stay on her feet, and instead she just got tangled up in the bushes and totally pitched over backwards through them.  Trying to slow her descent backwards only proved to make things even more difficult for her, as the branches of the bushes seemed to grab her and twist her around as she scrabbled for purchase amongst them, and then Kimmie discovered that the bunch of bushes she’d been in had bordered a dropoff . . . one that she didn’t know existed until she ended up falling backwards over it.

Fortunately it wasn’t a sheer drop from a cliff or anything like that, as the dropoff was merely a point where the relatively smooth ground of the park started a downward descent and eventually ended up in another neighborhood.  Swearing, yelping, and completely disoriented as she tumbled down the hill, Kimmie was momentarily grateful that at least it was grass she was rolling over, and that it wasn’t a bunch of filthy dirt and tree roots . . . though she became slightly unhappier when her roll was ended by a collision with a good-sized tree that sat on the edge of the sidewalk.  The impact knocked the wind out of her, which only made the world spin even harder and increased her already considerable discomfort by several notches, and Kimmie lay on her side, partly wrapped around the tree’s large circumference and mindlessly staring at the pattern of its bark, reflecting that this isn’t exactly what she’d expected to happen to her when she’d turned into a vampire.  “Bastard . . . tree,” she painfully wheezed when she started to get some air into her lungs, which felt like someone had played them like a set of bagpipes for several hours, and she weakly reached up to ineffectively punch the tree, which didn’t seem impressed with her in the least.

Kimmie could barely think at the moment, as she felt more screwy and out-of-it than she ever had during the several weekend drinking sessions she’d had during high school . . . she hadn’t even felt this loopy when they’d given her too much sleepy gas at the dentist’s when she’d had her wisdom teeth yanked.  And another difference between those past incidents and this one was that she’d been pleasantly numb when her brain was slacking off, whereas right now felt like she had iron filings running through her veins.  She involuntarily groaned as the pain flowed back into her after the momentary respite after the collision with the tree, almost wishing she’d pass out, but decided that wouldn’t have been the best thing in the world to happen to her.  If she passed out when she was in her apartment and in her bed, that was fine, but passing out here was another matter entirely . . . somehow or other she had to get herself back to her car and get back home without conking out or crashing, which at this time seemed an impossible task.  But Kimmie was anything if not terribly stubborn, and pushing against the lousy tree, she started to work to get herself into a sitting position . . . she figured from there she could make the tree help her get up on her feet, and as for what she’d do after that, she’d cross that bridge when she got to it.  If only the pain would stop for a little bit!  She could deal with the wooziness fairly well, but the throbbing pain pulsing through her body was just totally wrecking her . . .

“Well, hello there!” came a smooth voice from the sidewalk after Kimmie had dragged herself nearly to her feet on the tree’s bark.  When she jerked her head up to see where the voice had come from, she nearly blacked out, and she had to shut her eyes for several seconds to stay conscious.

While Kimmie was battling her black-out, the voice said, “Check it out, Neil . . . looks like we’ve got ourselves a party girl.  What do you think?”

There was the sound of an appreciative grunt, and then a second voice answered, “Seems that way . . . looks like she’s been partying a little too hardy, as a matter of fact.”

A third voice piped up with, “Think she’ll mind going to another one?”

Kimmie finally got her eyes open again and she blearily focused on the forms of three young men standing on the sidewalk watching her, and she saw that they were all fairly well-dressed, with neat button-down shirts, jeans, and had short-cut hair to complete their appearances.  They looked just about like the kind of guy she would have dated in high school, the typical, respectable upper-middle-class American male, which could be found in just about every town and college campus in the country.  The young vampire felt a brief flash of relief, as she figured that her cavalry had arrived, and that these guys would help her out, but she began to reconsider that when she caught a very strong scent of alcohol emanating from them, along with the way they were looking at her.  She’d seen that look before, and had once kneed a guy in the balls and then kicked him in the jaw when he’d tried to corner her in the hallway at a party she’d been to in high school.

“Wanna go to a party, wild girl?” the first guy asked as he stepped up to the tree so that he was only a few feet from Kimmie, who didn’t shrink away but instead glared as defiantly as she could.  “The one we were at was dead, but the one we’re going to out to be really jumping, especially if you’ll go and keep us company.  So how about it?”

Kimmie had meant to say, “Fuck off and die, asshole,” but instead her remark came out as a slurred, mushy mass of syllables that bore hardly any resemblance to their original form . . . dammit, this was worse than being drunk!  She shook her head once to try to clear it, but instead only made herself dizzier, and the guy had the nerve to laugh at her.

“I think she’s totally wasted already!” he said, and the other two joined in the laughter.

One of them pointed at her hair, which had come out of its ponytail during her tumble down the hill and was no longer covered with her hat.  “Look at her hair . . . I can just bet that she’s a crazy party girl, probably goes to all the clubs and does all kinds of stuff.”

“What kind of stuff do you do, crazy girl?” the first guy asked, leering at her in a way that made her want to rip his face off and wipe her ass with it, regardless of the fact that she didn’t have to use the john any more.

“We could just find out, you know,” the third guy said, and Kimmie noticed that now all three of them were up by the tree and had formed a loose semicircle around her.  Distinctly not good.

The second one held up a case of beer.  “We’ve got beer, crazy girl, want some?”

Kimmie’s eyes narrowed and despite her disorientation and pain, she lunged forward and tried to clock him between the eyes, but instead stumbled with one arm outstretched and started to fall towards the ground.  She was caught by the first and third guys, who each grabbed an arm and held her upright while she tried to struggle free, but to no avail, as her vampiric strength was gone for the time being.  All three guys laughed at her predicament, and the one with the case of beer pulled one out and held it up to her as she feebly snarled at them, again feeling on the verge of passing out.  “Thirsty?” he asked, and Kimmie wanted to kick him in the face, but could barely move, much less attack.  This pissed her off so much . . . she knew some judo and hapkido pretty well and likely could have done some damage to these guys and then hauled ass out of there, but she could barely move at all, much less apply her knowledge.

“Sure she is . . . if she’s still blinking, she probably hasn’t had enough yet,” said the first guy, “Isn’t that right, party girl?  We’ll give you some more to get you feeling really good, and then you can come with us to the party . . . you’re gonna make everybody jealous of us!”  Kimmie gritted her teeth, unable to even extend her fangs, and vowed that regardless of what happened tonight, all three of them were going to be dead by her hand one way or another.

The guy with the beer waved it at her, leering.  “Ready?” he asked, and moved to open the can.

Then a new voice inserted itself into the mix.  “She’s had enough, and if you three blokes don’t clear on outta here right quick, I’m gonna be forced to be a royal bitch to one and all, and you don’t want that.”  All three guys turned as one to see the source of the husky, feminine, and English-accented voice, and Kimmie groaned when she saw who it was, as she recognized the young woman.

The gal in question was slender and short (if not for her platform shoes, she would only have stood at around 5’3” at the outside), and dressed in a blue tanktop and tight-fitting red vinyl pants, with bright blonde streaks in the forelocks of her long red hair, which framed a face with very girlish, lightly-rounded features.  With her blue eyeshadow and bright red lips, she looked much more like a party girl than Kimmie did, and from what Kimmie remembered of this young woman, she also had much more of the attitude for it.  When Kimmie had been hanging out in the Glass Rose, one of L.A. goth clubs, the gal standing less than twenty feet away had gotten up on stage and verbally abused the crowd to the point where she’d had to be physically dragged out of the club by several bouncers, who had had one hell of time removing her from the premises.  One of them had even gotten bit, and Kimmie had nearly gotten attacked by her when she’d tried to crawl across the young vampire’s table, imploring Kimmie to go with her, and that Kimmie was just like her . . . like hell she was!  Despite her small size and sprightly appearance, the young lady was like a rabid wildcat, and Kimmie had been glad to see her go . . . and was dismayed to see her reappear.

One of the guys let out an appreciative whistle at the sight of the newcomer, and another said, “What a fox!  Hey baby, wanna go to a party with us?”

The blonde-streaked redhead scowled and sharply replied, “Me bloody name is not ‘baby,’ and if I answered to that coming from the likes of you, I’d probably have to bash me own brains in with a wrench.”  She then giggled a little, looked off to the side, and said, “And they all look alike, too!”

Two of the guys chuckled at her rebuff to their companion, who scowled a little himself and asked, “Then what is your name?  And you still didn’t tell us whether you wanted to go to a party with us or not.”

The young woman put her hands on her hips and replied, “Mary Louise Swafford, queen of the asylum and lunatic first class unlimited, at your service . . . though you’ll likely be calling me some rather foul names by the time this is all said and done.  And I wouldn’t go to a bloody party with any of you if me own life depended upon it . . . I’ve got a little something known as standards, and so does she, so I’ll thank you to leave her in my care.”  After a few seconds, she shrugged, then said, “I don’t think they’ll go for it, either, but call me an old softie . . . I like to give someone a chance to bugger off before I have to get mean with them.”

Kimmie made a half-hearted attempt to escape while the trio was distracted by the odd young woman, who still seemed to be talking to herself like she had been at the Glass Rose last month, and found that her strength was still gone . . . and it seemed like the pulsing pain was slowly increasing, as well.  She let out a groan of dismay, which made Mary’s expressive features twist into a sharp scowl.  “Let her go, now.  She’s coming with me, and there’s nothing any of you blighters can do about it,” she said, her tone one of command.

The three guys laughed.  “And are you gonna make us?  Why don’t you just have a beer and come along with us?” the first guy, who was holding onto Kimmie’s arm too tightly, said, his tone light.

“Yeah, two drunk party girls could show us some great stuff,” the one with the beer said, and he tossed the can he was holding over to Mary, who deftly snatched it out of the air with one hand.  When she examined it, she burst out laughing.

“Bloody Rolling Rock?!  Blimey, what kind of lightweights are you?  I wouldn’t gargle with this weak pisswater, much less drink it!” she jeered, pointing at them and laughing derisively.  “If you fancy getting me down to me knickers, you’d have to give me something imported, because we Brits don’t do anything but yawn at the watered-down garbage you blokes call proper beer.  You guys are . . . what’s the word I’m looking for, Lucille?” she asked, looking off to the side again, as though she were speaking to someone else.

The three guys exchanged glances at this, not quite sure what to make of the young woman, and the one who had thrown her the beer made a motion by his mouth as though he were holding a cigarette.  “I think she’s been getting into the wackier stuff than this party girl has . . .” he said, grinning at Kimmie, who managed to flip him off.  Before he could respond to that, Lucille had apparently supplied Mary with the word she was looking for.

“Pussies!  That’s what you are!” she exclaimed in delight, pointing at them again.  “Back when I could still drink, I betcha I could’ve drank you all under the table, you pussies!”  Then it was her turn to give them the finger, which made her crow, “See, Fred?  I told you I’d remember it!”

Now the trio was starting to get annoyed with the antics of the redhead, and the one who’d tossed her the beer growled, “Just shut up and drink.  You’re going with us . . . we’ll get that craziness out of you, one way or another.”

This made Mary laugh madly.  “Me mummy and daddy already tried to do that and it didn’t do me a bloody bit ‘o good!  And they didn’t even give the queen of the asylum a proper bloody diamond-studded straitjacket, at that!” she said, tossing the beer up and down in her hand like it was a rubber ball.  “And I’m not drinking this pisswater for nothing, so you drink it!” she said, and without warning flung the can of beer at the guy like a cruise missile, and it slammed squarely against his forehead, exploding a burst of foam that splattered not only him, but the other two guys and Kimmie as well.  This evening just kept getting better . . . Kimmie fervently wished for a meteor strike or the timely arrival of an irritable tyrannosaurus rex.

The impact of the can against the forehead of the man must have carried a great deal more force behind it than the slim woman seemed capable of, because after a loud squawk, the beer-soaked goon toppled over backwards onto the grass and dropped his case of beer, bursting several more cans when they bounced off the sidewalk.  Just from the way he’d landed, they could tell that he was out cold.  “So what if I gave him brain damage?” asked Mary, “He was a prat to begin with, I couldn’t have made it much worse.”  Then she turned her eyes back to the two guys holding Kimmie.  “Want to call it a night, boys?”

The two looked at their fallen compatriot, then at each other, and then at Mary.  “You just made one hell of a mistake, you little limey bitch,” the first one growled, and he let go of Kimmie’s arm, which lightened the pain in it just a bit.  However, when she twisted around towards the other guy from the sudden lack of support on one side, that just made her feel worse, and she groaned again, hating everybody and everything that felt better than she did at the moment.

“If I’m a limey, then I guess that makes you fruity,” Mary informed him, making motions like she was rolling up invisible sleeves and lightly bouncing from foot to foot, surprisingly agile in her big platforms.

“Let’s get her,” said the first guy to the one still holding Kimmie’s arm.  “You can drop her, I don’t think she’s going anywhere . . . I want to get out of here before anybody notices anything.  I’m not in the mood to deal with the cops tonight.”  He glanced at the quiet houses off to their left, looking for trouble but not finding any; they were an area of the neighborhood which didn’t have very many houses too close by, but if there was a lot of racket, it was sure to attract someone’s attention.  “We get these two to the party, the other guys’ll cover for us if there’s any trouble . . . wouldn’t be the first time, and it probably won’t be the last.”

The other guy must have agreed with this, because he let Kimmie drop onto the grass, eliciting a moan from her that was originally supposed to be a violent swear word but didn’t quite make it out that way.  She landed in a heap, her cheek against the wonderfully cool and soft grass, so that she got a sideways view of the sidewalk and the street beyond it, where Mary was standing and looking at her with concern.  “You knobs didn’t have to drop her like that!” the redhead snarled, and she took several steps forward when the two guys advanced on her.  “You’re right, Lucille, that was a damned rude thing to do!”

“Shut your mouth and come with us, and we’ll show you a good time,” one of them said, “But if you have to be a bitch about it, I can’t promise you that.”

“Heh, I’ve got something for you to keep your mouth busy,” said the other, and Kimmie felt a twinge of fear for the garrulous redhead when she saw the decidedly dangerous body language of the two men and heard their sneering tones.  This Mary may have been a nutcase, but she had come to rescue Kimmie from those three morons, though her own intentions for Kimmie weren’t certain . . .  The vampire tried to crawl away, but the most she could manage was straightening herself up on the ground and then rising to all fours before tipping over onto her side again.

“Oh, is that so?” Mary asked, her voice dripping with scorn.  “I’ve got something you can put your gob on . . . and I’ve got it right here.”  Without any further warning, Mary had crossed the last few feet between herself and the two guys and absolutely hammered one of them with a lightning-fast fist that snapped the guy’s head back with a spray of blood.  Before Kimmie could blink, Mary leaped straight up and kicked him in the face with one of her blue-sparkled platform shoes, snapping his head back again, and when she came down, she drove the same shoe into his knee, causing it to bend backwards like a bird’s knee until Kimmie’s ears caught the sound of cartilage being shredded.  The guy’s scream was cut off when Mary drove an elbow down onto his head and either knocked him out or killed him . . . either way, he dropped to the pavement in a pile.  She didn’t have much in the way of finesse or style, but she was effective, Kimmie admitted to herself, stunned at the turn of events.

Before the other guy even had a chance to react to the barrage Mary had unleashed on his friend, she lashed out with a fist and backhanded him with it across the face, loosing another spray of blood and causing him to nearly fall.  He didn’t even get the chance to stumble to regain his balance, as Mary was viciously folding him in half over her raised knee a second later, causing him to make a curious croaking sound that almost made Kimmie laugh.  Mary then grabbed hold of the guy’s short hair and yanked backwards on it, slamming him onto the pavement flat on his back, his head bouncing off the unyielding surface.  He didn’t move after that, and like his comrade, Kimmie hoped he was dead.

“Bloody sods, you got what you deserved.  Blighters like you make me so mad I could spit!” said Mary as looked down at the two fallen men with clear contempt on her face, and she actually took the time to spit on them before she grabbed their legs and roughly dragged them across the street, letting their heads bang against the curb when she got them up on the sidewalk.  She then put them on the grass next to the guy she’d hit with the beer can (who was sporting a bloody gash on his forehead from it), moving them rather easily despite the fact that they were both more than six inches taller and built much bigger than she was.  After surveying her work for a second, Mary knelt down on the grass next to Kimmie and looked at her with even more concern than before.  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked softly, “Can you sit up?”

She reached out, gently took Kimmie’s hands, and helped her into a sitting position, all the while watching her like a mother hen.  Kimmie didn’t know what to make of this, and was starting to become more and more certain that she was in the presence of a total psychopath . . . they could go from vicious to gentle and back again in the span of seconds, she’d read, and she worriedly wondered if Mary’s vicious streak was going to come back, this time aimed at her.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” said Mary, “Don’t fret.”  She seemed a little embarrassed for a moment, and then quietly said, “I was . . . following you, and after you got the bloke in the bushes, I heard you fall, so I went after you.”  She glanced sharply to one side and sharply snapped, “Not now, Lucille.  I don’t want to hear it.”  Then she turned back to Kimmie, who was watching her as warily as she could, though her eyelids were starting to droop . . . as much as she was hurting right now, the thought of passing out seemed more and more attractive, despite the fact that she was now at this weirdo’s mercy.  “I thought about helping you, but I . . . didn’t think you’d want that, so I stayed back.  But when those guys got you, I couldn’t watch . . . I had to do something,” she said, her voice earnest.  “I’m sorry I followed you, but I didn’t know what else to do . . . I know you think I’m daft, and sometimes I think I am, too, but I . . .”

She paused for a few moments, then said, “You’re like me, I can tell it, but you don’t know . . . well, you seem a little clueless.”  She offered a wry smile, then gave Kimmie a little hug.  “I don’t mean that in a bad way, don’t worry.  Can’t you speak?”

The young vampire tried to say something, but her speech was totally slurred beyond comprehension now, and the world was starting to grey out around her even as she watched Mary, who was looking more worried with each passing second.  “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I’ll help you, I promise.  I know people who can figure out what’s the matter and fix it . . . we’ve all got to stick together, you know,” she said, and then opened her mouth in a smile that Kimmie took for simply being goofy until two ivory fangs smoothly slid down into place and Mary tapped one of them with a red fingernail.  Kimmie started to make a sound of surprise, and then conked out completely, though whether it was from surprise or simply her body giving out, she’d never know.

Go To Part Two